The high speed operation of circular knitting machines can generate considerable fiber waste, such as dust, lint and/or flock, from the yarns being knitted to form the fabric. Such fiber waste tends to accumulate on the knitting machine parts, particularly on the knitting section thereof, e.g. yarn carriers, cylinder, dial or sinker cap and the needles and/or sinkers. Unless quickly removed, such fiber waste can be knit into the fabric which will substantially reduce the quality thereof and can cause damage to the knitting instrumentalities, e.g. needle breakage.
Various types of cleaning devices for such circular knitting machines have been proposed. The most common of these devices include air blowing nozzles for directing high velocity streams of air against the knitting instrumentalities. Examples of such cleaning devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,691,536 and 5,201,793 owned by the assignee of this application.
These known devices usually provide for rotation of the air nozzles or air jets in the same or opposite direction to the direction of rotation of the needle cylinder of the circular knitting machine. While generally effective for removing fiber waste from the knitting instrumentalities, such cleaning devices provide for rotation of the air nozzles or air jets by incorporating the driving means therefor into the driving mechanism of the circular knitting machine at the time of manufacture of the knitting machine or by a major modification of the circular knitting machine. Once installed, such cleaning devices are very difficult to service and/or repair where such service or repair requires demounting and remounting the same. Also, the inclusion of such prior cleaning devices is very difficult, time consuming and expensive.